Why customer journey mapping alone isn’t enough to kick serious brand goals

Here goes:

You’ve done the hard work.

Your customer journey mapping is done and dusted.

You give yourself a good pat on the back.

 

Now that you have a clear picture of the brand touchpoints it takes to turn a colder than cold audience into obsessed longterm brand fanatics, what’s the next logical step?

Writing the copy for each brand touchpoint.

 

But before you get cracking it’s time to take stock and ask yourself a few key questions:

Did you map the core messages each of these brand touchpoints needs to push?

Did you work out clear AND tangible audience pain points and motivations for each step of the customer journey?

Do you have the skills it takes to turn pain points, needs and possible objections into words that convert?

 

That’s where a strategic approach to copywriting for your customer journey comes in.

One that…

Looks at the holistic picture and crafts copy strategically through the 6 stepping stones of the customer journey (more on that later on)

Doesn’t treat copy in isolation and instead makes sure it is mapped out strategically so it flows and fits together like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle

Anticipates your audience’s needs well before your audience knows they’re ‘a thing’

Here are a few tips for every stage of the customer journey that will make strategic copywriting your biggest and most successful tool for customer journey mapping:

Awareness

In this stage you want to create first brand touchpoints that have nothing to do with your signature offer, but rather introduce a bigger picture to your audience.

In the awareness stage, your audience is completely unaware that they have a problem or pain point that needs fixing. So the content you deliver is likely linked to strategic SEO and keyword research via blog posts.

Tools such as Answer the Public come in handy when it’s time to generate awareness pieces that drive completely cold, yet aligned, audiences to your website.

Any blog posts you write should be optimised with SEO in mind, but still write for your readers first. So don’t stuff your posts with keywords leaving your readers behind.

Interest

This important stage is the next logical step. You’re looking at an audience that knows they have a problem that needs fixing, but they’re still unaware of the solutions.

Now’s the time to lead with real value so you can capture leads and deliver content that addresses possible objections along the way so they’re no longer an issue when it’s time to hit the ‘BUY’ button.

In this stage you can rely on organic traffic via social media, search engines or even use paid retargeting ads to specifically target those audience member who visited one of your strategic blog posts in the awareness stage.

Build a strategic landing page that captures email addresses in exchange for a free lead magnet. This lead magnet has to deliver genuine value and must be linked to your signature offer you want them to purchase down the track.

Make sure you have email automation in place with a well-crafted welcome sequence so you stay front of mind and help that audience progress to the next stage of their customer journey. Now’s the perfect time to segment your audience so you’ve got insights on their interests and can serve up super-targeted content down the track.

There are many email automation tools out there, all with very different price points. Pick the one that’s right for you and ticks all your boxes. I recently moved my email list across to Drip. and love how easy they make it to build strategic workflows that incorporate segmentation.

I love to deliver hyper-specific content to my audience so that was a big must for me.

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Quick Sidenote: Listen to my guest episode on Messaging and the Customer Journey

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Consideration

In this stage your audience knows they’ve got a problem and they know there are solutions out there (because you introduced them in your welcome sequence and possibly paid ads you served up).

The missing piece is working out whether you’re the perfect solution.

This is when you get out the big guns:

Make sure your website is telling your story, builds connections and converts

Push your purpose, vision and mission to show your point of difference

Help them imagine a better future with your offer in their lives

Use case studies and testimonials to get them across the line

You basically want to remove any doubt that you are the perfect solution by making the decision as easy as possible and help them come to their own conclusion.

Decision

We’ve arrived at the pointy end.

This phase is all about a decisive call to action.

Now that you’ve taken your audience on a journey, they should be able to see their future in front of them. Clearly! They should no longer have objections to overcome, they should know whether your brand purpose aligns with their idea of ‘what good looks like’.

And they should be ready to buy.

Now it’s important to remove any roadblocks:

Make the checkout process as easy as possible

Make navigating your store a breeze

Clearly communicate what they can expect

Cover any last-minute FAQs so that last bit of doubt can be put to bed

 

And once they’ve hit that ‘BUY’ button, celebrate them for doing so.

Reassure them they made the right decision.

And infuse personality while you’re there.

(Nothing worse than system-generated confirmation emails)

 Retention

Did you know that it’s 5-25 times more expensive to find new clients than to retain existing ones? Yep, according to a Harvard Business Review article, looking after your superstar clients should be front of mind for every brand.

(And I couldn’t agree more.)

So how can you drive loyalty after the first purchase?

Encourage feedback via customer surveys that show you genuinely care

Serve targeted offers that link with their first purchase as the next logical step

Invite them to join a loyalty programme and actually make it worth it

Deliver handy content that links with their purchase (recipe books that go with the kids dinner set, journaling prompts that go with the yearly planner they purchased, tips on how to use their headshots effectively across their brand platforms)

Celebrate purchase anniversaries with a discount or freebie

 

The list goes on and on. The sky’s the limit!

All that counts is that you make them feel like royalty.

Show them you care, that you love them and you want them to be part of your community.

A little side note: If you want to check out a prime example of how to use email marketing and brand touchpoints to delight your customers, check out this post where I unpack The Sill’s brand touchpoints post purchase. It’s pretty epic!

Advocacy

Now this is the crème de la crème of flattery.

Customers who tell their friends and besties about you.

What’s the key?

Make it easy.

Here are a few strategic ways you can go about it:

Introduce a referral programme that not only rewards your existing clients, but also the ‘fresh’ client

Serve up all the referral programme details in a handy-to-use format so that your existing clients don’t have any heavy lifting to do and can simply hit ‘forward’

Create a community of brand fans around you via free client-only portals, Facebook Groups, networking events, etc

Your customers will be thrilled to share their treasured community with their besties.

It just makes sense to share the next-level brand experience with others if it’s outstanding.

In the end, Filling your mapped customer journey with strategic copy all comes down to one thing:

Think like your audience and genuinely deliver value, experience and bespoke content that shows you care. For the long haul!